Diocesan Resources
This Week in Ministry 25: Saint of the Week, Oscar Romero (2015)
This Week in Ministry 25: Saint of the Week, Oscar Romero
Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez was born on August 15, 1917, in Ciudad Barrios, El Salvador. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1942 and appointed archbishop of El Salvador’s capital, San Salvador, in February 1977, at a time when reports of human rights violations by government troops and death squads were on the rise.
A little more than a month after his appointment to San Salvador, Archbishop Romero’s close friend and minister to El Salvador’s campesinos, Jesuit Fr. Rutilio Grande, was assassinated. Later that same year, El Salvador’s right-wing government was overthrown, and civil war erupted.